Shoulder pad for garments



Nov. 12, 1946. B; MECHUR 2,410,986

SHOULDER PAD FOR GARMENTS Filed July 17, 1945 2 ATTORNEXE Patented Nov. 12, 1946 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE SHOULDER PAD FOR GARMENTS Berthold Mechur, New York, N. Y. Application July 17, 1945, Serial No. 605,476

1 Claim. (01. 22ii8) This invention relates to garments and is more specifically directed to the construction of shoulder pads to be applied, for instance, to womens dresses and similar garments to alter or correct the shoulder lines.

Shoulder pads are widely used in such garments and have become an important part thereof.

Usually, they are made in standard sizes and different shapes for sale to garment manufacturers or are directly provided by these latter, being in any event incorporated into the garment during the manufacture thereof.

Such shoulder pads have the inherent shortcomings that they do not provide for the individual requirements of the wearers of the garments, so that very often alterations have to be made by the retailers to fit the garment to the conformation of the shoulders of the buyer, with the necessity of ripping out the pads or lifting the shoulder line.

Furthermore, shoulder pads for womens garments or the like are usually made with a filling that does not stand the usual drycleaning process to which the garment may be subjected, so that new pads have often to be applied after dry cleaning to avoid the necessity ofwearing a garment with ill fitting shoulders, caused by the displacement or disintegration of the pad filling during cleaning, and conferring a clumsy appearanc to the whole garment.

Other types of shoulder pads involve substantial changes in the usual method of construction of the garment with an increased cost of this latter and other shortcomings, and in any event no shoulder pad having all the characteristics that are desirable in such an article, has been heretofore proposed.

The primary object of the present invention is to eliminate all the shortcomings inherent in the shoulder pads heretofore known, and more specifically to provide a shoulder pad of novel structure applicable to garments without any modification in the usual methods of construction thereof, which, while permitting ready removal of the pad filling by the garment wearer for the cleaning of the garment, is also readily adjustable to the required thickness for a satisfactory fitting of the garment shoulders without necessity of removing the whole pad and without any alteration in the garment itself.

Other objects of the invention are to provide a shoulder pad comprising a pocket to be attached to the garment in any suitable manner, which is shaped to provide a suitably curved or arched formation of the shoulder pad, which can be readily opened to remove or insert the pad filling and closed to retain the filling in position therein, and which embodies resilient means effective to permit the adjustment of the pad to difierent thicknesses within wide limits, through the insertion of a variable number of preformed filling elements, and to maintain the desired shape of the pads regardless of the number of filling elements used.

These and other objects will become apparent in the following description of the invention illustrated in the drawing, wherein:

Fig. 1 is a top plan view of a complete shoulder pad according to the invention.

Fig. 2 is a side elevational view of the pad of Fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is a front elevational view of the pad.

Fig. 4 is a vertical section through the pad on line 44 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 5 is a bottom perspective view illustrating the pocket forming part of the pad open for insertion of padding units thereinto.

Fig. 6 is a perspective view of the padding units used according to a preferred embodiment of the invention. 5

Referring now in detail to the drawing. numeral ID in Figs. 1 to 3, indicates as a whole a pad according to the invention, which is intended to be suitably attached to a garmentin the proper position at the shoulder region thereof.

The pad comprises a flat base member H of a suitable fabric or like material, which is preferably of triangular shape as best shown in Fig. 5. Superimposed upon'said base member is a top member l2 which is secured to the base member by sewing marginal portions thereof, as indicated at l3, to two sides of the triangular Base, so as to form a substantially triangular pocket having one open side or end as clearly illustrated in Fig. 5.

Said top member l2, which may be of the same flexible material as the base member II, is not identical in shape to this latter, but is cut to such dimensions that when it is sewed to the base member as aforesaid, the material will be caused to bend and to form an arcuate top wall for the pocket, the curvature whereof gradually increases from the vertex of the triangular formation opposite to the open side thereof to said open side, substantially as illustrated in the figures. Because of this construction, there isprovided a relatively wide mouth .at the open end of the or padding units as hereafter described, and the resulting complete shoulder pad, while presenting 3 a convex upper surface, is of gradually increasing thickness as is required for such articles. It should be noted that these desirable characteristics are automatically insured by the structure of the pocket and therefore maintained throughout the life of the shoulder pad no matter how many times the filling may be withdrawn from and reinserted into the pocket.

The open side of the triangular pocket formation is provided with closing means adapted to retain the filling material therein during use of the garment to which the shoulder pad is attached. Such closing means comprise a resilient element ll of elastic fabric or the like, which is secured to the free edge of the top member II,

as at l (Figs. 4 and 5) and extends downwardly toward the base member H so as to form a wall in juxtaposition to the mouth of the pocket.

An extension or fiap I6; preferably of the same material as the pocket forming members H and I2, is attached at II to the lower end of the resilient element H and is adapted to be inserted into the pocket, between the filling and the base member II, and separably secured to this latter by means of a button l8 carried by the base member and acooperating buttonhole IQ of the extension.

When the extension I6 is unbuttoned and removed from the interior of the pocket, the closing element l4, due to its resiliency, can be readily displaced from its normal position in juxtaposition to the mouth of the pocket to permit access to the mouth for the insertion of the filling maclosing element being so dimensioned as to cause the same to be considerably stretched whenever the pocket is substantially completely filled.

The filling material for the shoulder pad consists of a plurality of padding units, three in the embodiment illustrated as shown at 20, 2!, 22 in Fig. 6 of triangular shape to fit the pocket, which are of decreasing area and thickness and adapted 4 to fill substantially the entire space defined by the members II and I! when assembled in superimposed relation to each other.

As will be apparent from the foregoing, a

shoulder pad according to the invention, while embodying all the characteristics desirable in such article as to shape, ease of attachment to the garment and the like, also possesses the important feature that it permits ready fitting of the garment to the comformation of the shoulders of the buyer through the insertion of all or part of the padding units into the pocket, as may scribed and illustrated in the drawing without departing from the spirit of the invention or exceeding the scope of the claim.

I claim:

A shoulder pad for garments comprising a substantially triangular pocket formation having one open side and embodying an arcuate flexible top wall forming a mouth at said open side, a plurality of superimposable padding units of decreasing area insertable into said pocket formation from said mouth thereof and adapted to fill substantially the said pocket formation, a

resilient element secured to said arcuate top wall and having a free edge, said resilient element extending in juxtaposition to said mouth to form a closure wall therefor yieldable to permit insertion of the padding units, and means for sep- 

